Effective January 3rd, the new county lines for North Carolina’s Fifth District will come into effect. For those who receive my weekly newsletter, I encourage you to visit the North Carolina General Assembly’s website to confirm where your address lies within these new district lines.
As always, I will continue to provide you with the most pertinent information on what’s before the House of Representatives as well as important happenings within the Fifth District.
A Year In Review
For my final newsletter of 2020, I want to share with you some top-of-mind accomplishments from this past year. To be frank, the 116th Congress has been deadlocked over hyper-partisan divides that have been stoked by Washington Democrats, but that has not deterred me in my fight for commonsense solutions and delivering for the proud citizens of North Carolina’s Fifth District. Here are a few notable accomplishments that I’d like to share with you:
Great Act Signed into Law
On December 30th of 2019, President Trump signed H.R. 150, the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act into law. Representative Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) and I authored this piece of landmark legislation to develop a standardized, government-wide reporting system for federal grant recipients. For too long, federal grant reporting has relied on outdated, ineffective reporting methods that require nonprofit groups - serving their communities - to divert valuable working hours to fill out tedious, redundant paperwork. This legislation will bring unprecedented transparency and efficiency to approximately $650 billion in annual federal spending.
Eliminating Surprise Medical Bills
This past Sunday, President Trump signed the latest Coronavirus relief bill, and included within it is a bipartisan solution to eliminate the financially crippling practice of surprise medical billing and provides patients with increased transparency, so they are empowered to make the best health care choices for themselves and their families. This solution was based upon H.R. 5800, the Ban Surprise Billing Act, a bill I coauthored with Chairman Bobby Scott. Patients should not be penalized with these outrageous bills simply because they were rushed to an out-of-network hospital or unknowingly treated by an out-of-network provider at an in-network facility. This is a win for patients and their families that will improve America’s health care system.
A Sizable Win for Visually Impaired Workers
In August, H.R. 4920, the VA Contracting Preference Consistency Act, was signed into law by President Trump. I was immensely proud to serve as an original cosponsor of this critical legislation.
In North Carolina’s Fifth District, dozens of blind or visually impaired individuals have faced the prospect of losing their jobs due to conflicting federal laws. For those workers, that opportunity was provided through the AbilityOne program. AbilityOne was enacted by Congress to help those who have trouble finding work due to circumstances outside of their own control. This program gives nonprofit companies that employ the blind and significantly disabled individuals preferential treatment in competing for certain federal procurement contracts. One such nonprofit is IFB Solutions, which employed those workers here in the Fifth District.
Unfortunately, previous court decisions have cost IFB Solutions the three federal contracts that supported those blind workers. This is because of an unnecessary conflict between AbilityOne and a similar program, the Veterans First program, which sets aside some Department of Veterans Affairs contracts for service-disabled veteran owned small businesses. The AbilityOne program has been exempted from such programs in order to not put programs for veterans and programs for the blind in conflict with each other. However, when Congress passed the Veterans Benefits Act of 2006 to create the Veterans First program, it neglected to exempt the AbilityOne program.
With the passage of H.R. 4920, nonprofits including IFB Solutions will have the opportunity to continue to work for the VA if they held contracts that predate the Veterans Benefits Act of 2006.
The Pandemic Preparedness, Response, and Rapid Recovery Act
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed burdensome regulations that have exacerbated a myriad of problems within the United States. Without question, the Pandemic Preparedness, Response and Rapid Recovery Act is an obligatory, bicameral initiative from Congress to cut bureaucratic red tape that hampers recovery from the damaging health and economic effects of COVID-19 and future pandemics. I was proud to work alongside Representative James Comer (R-KY), Senator James Lankford (R-OK), Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) to introduce this important legislation so that economic growth and America’s workforce will remain resilient.
War Crimes Rewards Expansion Act
On December 3rd, the House of Representatives passed my bill, H.R. 1819, the War Crimes Rewards Expansion Act. This important legislation helps clarify that rewards under the War Crimes Rewards Program can also be allocated for prosecutions that fall under domestic law – including U.S. law or the law of another country – in addition to the laws of international tribunals. With its passage, the United States Government, and governments across the world, take a leap forward in the pursuit of justice.
Have a blessed weekend.
Sincerely,
